‘The Good Wife’ – ‘A New Day’: You broke it, you bought it

“The Good Wife” is back for a new season, and I have a quick review of the premiere coming up just as soon as I stick with retail rules…

New night and time. New hairstyle. Fancy new office for Alicia. New opening title sequence (downplaying the incident that gave the show a title everyone now seems to regret). Frequent references to how different – dare I say new? – Alicia is acting. Even the episode title (which at one point was “Bad Bad Thing”) is “A New Day.” Think CBS and the Kings wanted to be sure we understood just how new everything was?

On the one hand, I understand that CBS wants to expand the show’s audience and also introduce it to any newcomers who perhaps didn’t watch on Tuesdays but will on Sundays. On the other, this is a show that worked very, very well for the past two seasons, and largely falls under the heading of If It Ain’t Broke…

Fortunately, most of the “new”ness was largely cosmetic – and the sort of status quo re-establishing you get in plenty of season premieres, with or without a timeslot move – and the core of the episode felt very much within “The Good Wife” formula: case with five or six twists, Alicia and Cary trying to out-swindle the other, obligatory social media references (the MMOG expert, the tutor’s impromptu dance video), colorful judge (played by Fred “Sy Ableman?” Melamed), Will and Diane wrestling with ethics vs. money, Eli being more clever than the rest of the world combined, etc. There were tweaks here and there – I enjoyed Kalinda’s flirtatious rivalry with Sophia much more than I did the feud with Blake last year, and am disappointed we likely won’t see her again now that Kelli Giddish is a regular on “Law & Order: SVU” – but this was more or less the show it was on Tuesdays, and that’s reassuring, even if the episode as a whole wasn’t among the series’ most memorable.

What did everybody else think? And has the move to a new night – and one that will make the show a frequent victim to football overruns for the next several months (as it was in New York and Philly last night) – made you more or less likely to continue with it?

Join The Discussion: Log In With

As a lawyer, Eli’s status at the Firm bugs me a little: we may have lobbying subsidiaries, but law firms don’t run crisis management shops (or political campaigns). Why? There are rules against partnering with non-lawyers. [www.law.cornell.edu]

That said, eh. I like having Eli Gold on my tv screen.

By: Scott Rosenberg

09.26.2011 @ 7:47 PM

The rules of professional conduct prevent profit-sharing with non-lawyers, not the sharing of office space with a preferred third-party vendor. I think it was pretty clear from the set-up in the S2 finale, the business name etched in glass, and Eli’s broad ability to negotiate fees and cash checks that that’s what happened.

By: Adam B.

09.26.2011 @ 9:22 PM

Lockhart Gardner has partners who aren’t in the firm’s name — David Lee from family law, for example, and all the alteh kochers from the vote last year.

But I otherwise agree that this would be fine as a rental of space.

By: Eliza72

09.26.2011 @ 2:01 PM

Since I don’t watch football, Sunday night is fine with me. The title is starting to seem more ironic to me–does Alicia need to be a wife at all, never mind a good one? I’m not even convinced she needs to be with Will, Mr “I’m just pretending to have emotions”? Looking forward to the season’s twists and turns.

By: webdiva

09.29.2011 @ 9:05 PM

The tile seems just sardonic comment on her current status now, and that’s fine with me. It’s appropriate. And she *has* changed; who wouldn’t, given the events of the last few episodes and the whole year preceding? New hairdo’s fine; new clothes – check. I especially love the new attitude.

But this is still Alicia, and she’s still at Lockhart Gardner, and all the others are still who they are. I don’t care for the Sunday night slot — it interferes with my PBS watching, and I worry about loss of viewers — but maybe it won’t hurt. I really doubt it’ll help. Alan was right: it ain’t broke. Let’s hope they stop messing with the show now and just GO with the stories.

And I’m so glad to see Eli again! Even more so to see his exchanges with Alicia, whom he can’t seem to dislike and with whom he wants to retain a polite relationship for reasons of his own, apart from her soon-to-be ex. Good for him: she needs someone in her corner besides Ms. Lockhart. Besides, it’ll be interesting to see Eli walk that tightrope between keeping Peter happy, not pissing off the political higher-ups, and still not doing wrong by Alicia. If anyone can manage it, Eli can — but it’ll be fun to watch. Wheeee!

By: Jill

09.26.2011 @ 2:32 PM

I really don’t think Alicia should be with any man at this time, and I don’t see any chemistry between her and Will at all. Also, I was fine with the way her hair looked in the promo ads, maybe it was the layout; but actually see it on the show, her hair looked atrocious.
Also, my favorite scenes were with Eli, the dynamics of Cary and Kalinda and Cary and Peter.

By: ChampSkins

09.26.2011 @ 2:40 PM

Thought it was a good episode… but it felt a little off to me. Some of the stuff it was trying to do almost seemed like an attempt to lure Desperate Housewives viewers. I hope the show sticks to what worked well in the first two seasons and doesn’t veer away from that too much in this season.

Other than that, I hope Chris Noth is going to be much more prominent this season, as I enjoy his tough state’s attorney act as well as his campaign stuff with Eli. Can see that getting somewhat messy.

And also agree about Kelli Giddish, as she is so well served as a foe to Kalinda simply because they have great chemistry and tension between the two of them.

By: theoncominghope

09.26.2011 @ 2:53 PM

Hottest sex scene ever. Phew.

By: Jan

09.26.2011 @ 4:06 PM

Yes – it was :)

By: Tina

09.26.2011 @ 8:13 PM

Seriously! This show is a great lesson in doing more with less. That scene on cable would not be nearly as powerful.

By: nas

09.26.2011 @ 8:28 PM

ooo yea! and agree 100% tina…

By: LizC

09.26.2011 @ 11:40 PM

No kidding. I felt like I needed to take a cold shower after that.

By: webdiva

09.29.2011 @ 9:07 PM

We-e-e-ellllll, not *EVER* … but it’s in the running. Amazing how much you can show without needing to show, um, everything. :D

By: B. Marino

09.26.2011 @ 2:56 PM

My one problem with the show was, as much as I still like what was going on with them, the treatment of Noth and Cumming’s characters in season 2. In the first season Eli felt much more interesting, edgy, scary and on top of things and Noth’s character was more interesting in jail. He almost felt like an old deposed king. Them playing politics in the 2nd season meant Noth became less interesting as a character and Eli ran around and did a lot of pratfalls. I hope the two get interesting again. (Also, I felt like Titus Welliver, as great as he was, could have gotten more to do).

By: Some Guy

09.26.2011 @ 3:02 PM

The Israel-Palestinian-hate crime angle was pretty heavy-handed.

By: BonnieS

09.26.2011 @ 3:35 PM

Bollywood tutor video was awesome addition-what was the song?

By: bri

09.26.2011 @ 3:57 PM

HATE the sunday night spot. Hatehatehate it.

By: Jan

09.26.2011 @ 4:05 PM

I’m fine with the title – the idea that they were both invited to dinner keeps it going. Remember – they ARE married. Carey still gives me the creeps – the word smarmy must have his picture beside it in the dictionary.

By: Kmarko

09.26.2011 @ 4:22 PM

Guess I’ll have to adjust the DVR, only got about 1/2 of this one. Will they be airing it again?

DVRs need to have some sort of sports overrun function (or do they already, I don’t know.)

By: Jamie

09.26.2011 @ 4:43 PM

Most do – you can set a show to record for an extra period of time – I always go with the max, three hours, on mine because you never know. I’ve seen Sundays where one hour was not enough cushion before.

By: Detie

09.26.2011 @ 9:50 PM

Tivo allows you to record Channel, Date and Time vs specific show.

By: Ted

09.26.2011 @ 4:30 PM

Without getting into specific issues, I thought the episode’s portrayal of political and cultural conflicts fell completely flat — once again, the writers fell into the same trap as David E. Kelley lawyer shows that try to wrap up complicated issues with two-sentence arguments and a few wisecracks. But portraying all sides in an offensive way is not the same thing as being even-handed.

By: kitty

09.26.2011 @ 4:33 PM

I didn’t care for the sex scenes; they was too gratuitous. As a result, it killed any sexual tension Will and Alicia had last season. They should have left the scene at that presidential suite door; leave something for the viewers’ fertile imaginations.

I hated the Eli Gold story-line in this episode. What a waste of airtime for such a great character.

I think the professional tension/energy between Alicia and Peter might actually bring them back together.

Not the best of this great show, but I’m glad it’s back.

By: webdiva

09.29.2011 @ 9:13 PM

Aaaaaahhh, no. There’s still plenty of tension, only now it’s of a different kind because though he loves the sex, Will is no longer sure what he wants to do about it in the office, where it *can’t* get out. Punishing Alicia with coolness in the house, so to speak, won’t help either of them and will probably tip off their colleagues. Lockhart has already noticed the problem between Alicia and her former best friend there, and she doesn’t buy Will’s change in attitude toward Alicia in the office. She’s a smart cookie; unless Will can thaw his behavior to what it was before he and his old flame ‘re-lit’, he’s drawing pictures for anyhone who’s smart enough to pay attention. That includes Kalinda.

By: Jess Haynie

09.26.2011 @ 4:41 PM

Really wasn’t feeling this. I get trying to give a returning audience a feeling of continuity and now starting a new season with an overly introductory style, but this felt like a mid-season episode. Your season opener is not the time for an agenda-heavy Jewish/Muslim story and a bunch of scenes of Eli throwing down dialogue with random people. It’s not the time for some weird-ass scenes of that overused daughter and subway hijinx. This reminded me of the early episodic, courtroom-centric version of the show that was also it’s least entertaining. I know they’re capable of much better storytelling.

Yes-you hit the nail on the head. I was so psyched to see the premiere I rushed home and was greeted with that? Underwhelming. The Kalinda and old girlfriend thing is already tired…trotting around and following her? Pulease.

I didn’t hate the episode but it suffered greatly compared to the last two eps of S2. Unfortunately for me I watched them all back to back last night. Presumably it will get back in the groove quickly. I was actually kind of excited about the move to Sunday because there’s nothing else I watch in that time slot and Tuesday was getting so crowded my DVR sometimes would spaz out on me. Then I realized the football issue. Easy enough to fix but still an annoyance.

By: bfish

09.27.2011 @ 12:59 AM

The Sunday night scheduling is a challenge but I’ll work around it even without a DVR. Because of the football overrun (in my experience it happens almost every week) we will watch TGW, catch some of the nighttime football game, and then watch Breaking Bad at 11 — of course it is critical to catch the latter!! We recently re-upped with HBO and Showtime so we can follow Boardwalk Empire (will watch the premiere later this week) and Dexter and Homeland when they start up. I guess having a lot of good shows on Sunday night is almost a return to the heyday of HBO, when some years various pair combinations of The Sopranos, SFU, The Wire, and Deadwood played together. (I think last year we watched Boardwalk Empire in real time and had to catch a rerun of Dexter.)

By: troopermsu

09.27.2011 @ 11:42 AM

Alicia nudging her client to lie about being in the car seemed out of character for her.

With DVR and On Demand services, I could not care less what night it airs.

By: theresa

09.27.2011 @ 4:41 PM

Hate the new hair and affair with Will!!! In my opinion, if you want to “take a breath” from your disfunctional relationship, why jump in the bed with someone else, especially someone unethical (remember, Will’s law strategies…does not bode well for an attorney…I can say this because I’m a paralegal), and UN UN UN ATTRACTIVE (sorry folks, but there are a plethora of good-looking, and better acting male performers, across the world, who could be “competitive” against Christopher Noth). If I were “finding my new womanly self,” I would kick all males to the curb and let them WORK HARD FOR MY MIND, BODY, AND SOUL. I mean, seriously, WILL!!! The guy has nothing redeeming in his entire being. Now, Alicia’s no different from Peter!

By: webdiva

09.29.2011 @ 9:20 PM

Yeah she is: she didn’t betray Peter — she ended it with him formally and is now starting to live her own life. And I’m pretty sure she’s doing this mostly for the friendly, nonjudgmental sex ’cause she ain’t had much for a loooooooong time, *not* because she thinks Will is a good long-term prospect. Remember: she knows his batting average with other women, and she’s never gong to put herself in a position to be stiffed again. If anything, she’ll decide when to do the leaving, and she’ll leave first when she’s done with him. Carefully, of course, and in a friendly way, as they still have to work together … but I don’t see them as a permanent item. Not now. She has a whole world of opportunities before her now, and she knows it. The thing with Will is jusgt scratching the ‘what-if’ itch. It doesn’t have to be permanent, and it doesn’t have to be rude or superficial, either, as Peter’s flings mostly were. We’ll see what Alicia decides when she gets around to it, but I’m pretty sure she’s not looking into the far future at the moment.

By: webdiva

09.29.2011 @ 9:26 PM

Typos again. Drat! When did you say we were getting an edit function here for comments – ? [wishful thinking …]